BACKGROUND AND IMPLEMENTATION CHALLENGES: Although there are smoking cessation services available in China, such as hotlines, clinics, APPs, few smokers knew and used them. Tobacco Control Office of Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (TCO) and WHO worked together hope to find a convenient way to inform the public about smoking cessation resources.
INTERVENTION OR RESPONSE: In commemorating the World No Tobacco Day and engage the smokers to take action, TCO created a "China Smoking Cessation Platform" mini program on WeChat collaborated with WHO China Office in 2021. This platform is a "one-stop resource platform". It featured all available and well-operated cessation services in China, including 10 cessation clinics in every province, 3 hotlines and 2 Mobile smoking cessation tools It also featured tobacco harms materials including posters, PSAs, short videos and brochure, etc. The objectives of the platform were increasing the quit rate by raising public awareness and smokers' utilization of evidence-based cessation services, and promoting smoking cessation services through the publicity of the platform. WHO launched "China Smoking Cessation Platform" WeChat mini-program promotion, collaborated with Tecent. Subsequently, TCO printed the mini-program code on various tobacco control publicity materials, and organized lots of tobacco advocacy campaigns nationally to disseminate this mini program.
RESULTS AND IMPACT: During 2021 WNTD period, the number of visits to the platform exceeded 1.27 million times, and has reached 4.2 million times now. Many smokers knew the cessation services the platform recommended and attempted to use these resources. According to our survey, the number of smoking cessation clinic visits and hotline calls from May to June 2021 showed a significant increase compared to the same period of 2020.
CONCLUSIONS: It is successful practice to disseminate smoking cessation service resources using Wechat channel. "China Smoking Cessation Platform" could promote smokers to take action for quitting using the resources recommended.